Last Dance
by Smiley612
Summary: Two and a half years after Eddie popped the question, Patricia and he are finally married. However, at the reception ceremony, Fabian Rutter approaches them and asks the bride for her hand in her last dance with a man other than Eddie, and Patty happily obliges as she dances with a man who, previously, hadn't even known how to hopscotch. / Fabicia brotp one shot.


**A/N: Hello, Paige. You're probably not reading this, Paige. But know this: YOU UNDERESTIMATE ME, PAIGE. I WILL WIN, PAIGE.**

**M'kay, this was just something I wrote in, like, two hours? But here's the schedule for the rest of the month: Peddie three-shot (11th), sad Fabina one-shot (13th), Peddie multichapter (15th), Christmas-y Fabina oneshot (17th), Christmas-y Auslly oneshot (19th), Peddie oneshot (21st), Fax oneshot (23rd), and a multi AU Anubis fic on the 27th. A lot of things are coming, so beware of updates in your email inbox. I do hope you enjoy this, though, because I love Fabicia so much.**

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**/o~~~o/**

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"Eddie!" Patricia exclaimed, catching her husband of three hours sneakily moving towards the cake. (She shouldn't have been surprised; she did marry the person who'd made a spaghetti hoagie, after all.) He grinned smugly as Patricia yelled, "Don't you dare!"

Ignoring his wife's demands, the sleeve collar of his posh black and white suit brushed the icing on the edge of the traditional black and white cake the new couple had ordered. As he licked his fingers to ear some of the decorated icing, Patricia slapped Eddie's leg and cursed him under her breath.

"Aw, come on, Yacker," Eddie smiled, licking the leftover icing from his lips. "No one will care, we're the bride and groom! Oooh, smile!" He pointed suddenly in front of her, where the photographer they'd bought kneeled down to snap the photo. Eddie, before the flash went off, pulled Patricia closer to his side with his arms around her shoulders. He smiled for the camera, but Patricia was more than positive that she had been caught glaring at the man she'd exchanged vows with 180 minutes ago.

It had taken them two and a half years, but the date had finally come: July 22nd, the afternoon of Patricia and Eddie's wedding ceremony. They were the only couple out of the many in Anubis House that had stayed together; Willow and Alfie had broken up soon after they departed for college, Mara and Fabian only lasted two weeks after graduation, and Jerome and Joy realized they wanted different things. Patricia and Eddie proved to be the only couple that prevailed through everything, and now they were sealing the deal.

They invited each of their friends from Anubis House, which might not have been the best idea, considering the circumstances. However, KT and Fabian were chatting happily, Mick (invited from Australia) was holding hands with Joy, Mara and Jerome were quietly discussing something, while Amber (invited from fashion college), stared as Willow gawked in her prescence. Alfie was probably off somewhere, personally inhaling all of Patricia and Eddie's good, while Nina (invited from America), was being a loner by sitting at her assigned table and stirring the lemonade in front of her with the straw.

The whole of Anubis House had changed immensely since graduation, but Patricia was just glad all of them could be together once again.

"What are you staring at?" Eddie whispered in Patricia's hear, making her jump up a bit in fright. She glared at him once again, but from the corner of her eye, she saw Joy in the seat next to Mick, giving her the evil eye, and Patricia knew exactly what she was thinking: _This is YOUR day, so don't ruin it._

"Nothin'," Patricia shrugged, her sleeveless white wedding gown tightening around the armpits. "I can't _wait_ to get out of this dress," she complained, moving around uncomfortably in her chair behind the cake. Someone was supposed to announce when the happy couple would be able to cut the cake, but so far, no one had come.

"And I can't wait to see you in your sweat pants and t-shirt on our honeymoon to Hawaii," Eddie commented, smirking; it was the only time in the history of ever that Patricia couldn't read his smirk (Usually, it just read something like _I'm mentally undressing you with my mind_ or _I'm planning something maniacal and you won't get to know what it is until it hits you over the head like a bucket_.)

"Was that sarcasm?" Patricia asked him, but even Eddie could see she wasn't mad or annoyed in the slightest. In the past decade or two, Patricia had grew to love his sly smirk; she considered it endearing.

"Nah," Eddie began, taking her hand.

"Edison!" A very much older voice compared to 2013 called from a few yards away, interrupting their moment. The huge cake in front of her was blocking her view, but she knew that the voice belonged to Mr. Sweet, former headmaster of Creepy Towers and now, her father-in-law. Her mother-in-law, Eddie's mother and Sweetie's ex-wife, was off doing who-knows-what. "Edison!"

"Dad!" Eddie smiled, excusing himself from the table and hugging his father, apparently not caring that he had called him by his full name. Eric smiled at Patricia before his son pulled away. "How is everything? Alfie didn't eat all the food, did he?"

"No," Mr. Sweet laughed, brushing the question to the side. "I just wanted to wish the both of you good luck, because honestly, Eddie, you'll need as much of it as you can get—"

"Mr. Sweet?" a male voice interrupted; three heads turned to the source of the voice, only to find Fabian Rutter in a suit and tie, standing alone behind his former school headmaster. Mr. Sweet acknowledged Fabian and told him to go on, so he did. "I was just wondering if I could borrow Patricia for a little while."

His former roommate whistled for his attention; Fabian realized his mistake at once, and quickly reworded: "Sorry. Eddie, could I borrow your wife for a moment?"

"Certainly," Eddie's American accent still hadn't worn off, even after years surrounded by Brits, so it was very distinguishable even when plenty of people on both Patricia and Eddie's side of the family in the ballroom. "Knock yourself out. But don't knock her out, because then you know what almost happened with KT that one time when you had too much to drink and you freaked out because—"

"Yes, thank you for that fine forensic analysis, Eddie," Fabian's cheeks turned pink as he held his hand for Patricia to take, which she did so, rather confused and puzzled. "I'll be right back with her."

Patricia craned her neck to look behind her: Eddie was blowing her a kiss dramatically. She would've pretended to catch it, but Fabian was holding her free hand. "What's going on?" she asked her friend, who wasn't in any rush, but who's cheeks were still pink from the embarrassment. "Why did you want to drag me out here? I kind of want to, you know, spend my wedding with my husband," she smiled, the giddiest she had been since Eddie first proposed to her. Her dress trailed along with her as she walked. Fabian was happy to see _her_ so happy, too, but he obviously had something else planned. He had the look in his eyes.

"Well, since you've already had your first dance with your husband..." It was then she realized what exactly he was asking her, as he held out his hand and asked, "I was wondering if you'd want your last dance with someone else to be with me."

A grin spread across Patricia's face as she announced, without questioning why he was asking this, "I'd love that."

If it was anyone else, Patricia probably would have declined the invitation. Alfie would step on her feet, Jerome would pull the "What's that on your shirt?" trick, and she wasn't all that close to Mick. However, she was close to Fabian, and even though she _still_ thought he looked like a dork in all the pictures he'd took of himself even as a twenty-seven year old, they were still close friends.

Fabian took her hand and started swaying to the rhythm of the music. He probably knew what song they were playing, she thought, because he still played the guitar in his spare time and listened to music to base his own off of. "How do you like the wedding?" she asked, watching as Fabian was careful not to step on her expensive, perfect white gown, worn specifically for this date.

"I like it," he told her, looking around the reception hall as if to check it was still there. "I do. . And especially with Eddie as your other half in planning this whole thing..." he laughed weakly, that kind of laugh he'd always release, like when Patricia was just pretending to be asleep back in 11th grade when they were keeping Victor awake all night, and could hear everything Fabian and Nina were talking about. That kind of laugh, when he didn't find something absolutely hysterical, but was smiling all the same.

"You did a good job on it," he praised her, spinning her around to go with the tune of the song that was playing. "And especially after two and a half years of waiting, I think all the panic and grief was worth it, don't you think?"

"Yeah," she admitted, glancing around the hall as well. Patricia Williamson had never been one to gawk over how 'pretty' something was...but the scenery surrounding her, she had to admit, was nice. "I haven't spoken to you in a while."

"I've been busy," he explained, glancing down at his feet for a moment to keep them both in tune with the music. "Mostly with work, plus my oldest sister just had her third baby the other day, so I didn't think I would be able to make it because my niece had just been born—" Patricia looked at him with her eyebrows arched, an even more puzzled expression than when she was first being dragged away. "Yeah, that was a stupid reason, wasn't it?" Fabian joked, and there came that laugh again.

Never once in Patricia Williamson's sixteen years of knowing and being friends with Fabian Rutter, had she ever been attracted to him in more than a platonic way. Sure, maybe Joy had (and she was pleased to see that her friend knew she was being over-the-top in her 11th grade year), and Amber had a crush on Fabian for like three days that formed when he was assigned to tutor her back in 8th grade, that Amber, apparently, would regret for the rest of her life. Willow told Joy once that she thought Fabian was cute when she'd given him a lesson on romantics; and even though she tried to deny it, Patricia _knew_ that KT liked Fabian, but was too shy to do anything about it, so they'd never gotten together, if Fabian had even liked her at all. (It seems all of the ladies, excluding Patricia, had liked Fabian at one time or another.)

She was married to Eddie now, of course, so don't think that she was just magically developing feelings for one of her best friends at this exact moment. "You know, for a while, I never thought we'd get a happy ending," Fabian admitted, making eye contact with his friend as they stood, rather close, as the song changed. Patricia saw from the corner of her eye that Eddie was standing near the cake, his sleeve collar covered in icing — shocker — but he didn't look jealous in the least. In fact, he almost looked amused.

"How so?" Patricia wondered, her arm nestled in Fabian's.

"You know," he began to explain. Patricia figured if he had both arms free, he'd scratch the back of his head. "Like...you know when Frobisher turned us both into sinners?" Once Patricia nodded her grave agreement, Fabian continued. "Of course, all I wanted to do was evil things, but I always felt like I was in there, deep down, somewhere. I don't know. And I could feel myself...drifting...for a little while. I never thought I'd make it back to the surface again, like I'd be evil my whole life. And of course, there were some times _before_ that, too..."

Patricia couldn't even begin to explain his pain throughout his years when he'd been a member of Sibuna. He'd always been the brains of the group, but he was the least confident out of the seven of them (the two girls that had dropped out in their third year of it did count too, you know), and he couldn't do anything when he knew he was the reason he sent his best friend down the pitfall. He didn't do anything to stop it when Victor sent Alfie down it, too. And even though he knew how to get out, he felt like crying when he sent Amber and Patricia falling as well.

"Well, we did get a happy ending," she assured him. He smiled back in return, even though she knew he'd been alone for most of the time ever since his split with Mara. She'd been up and at 'em, meeting new people day by day, while Fabian actually really liked her and sulked around for a few weeks after their original break up. He'd gotten back up on his feet, of course, but he'd only been in two or three long-term relationships (_long-term_ was putting it lightly, the longest relationship he'd had since his breakup with Mara was for a month). "Eventually."

"You did," Fabian told her, smiling at one of his closest friends. He'd nodded towards Eddie, who'd waved from the corner he stood in, scraping more icing off the cake as the seconds ticked by. Fabian almost had to hold Patricia back from attacking her husband, because she didn't want anything to happen to their precious cake.

Their wedding schedule had been all messed up; Patricia and Eddie had, of course, first shared their vows outside (They couldn't get married in a church, since Eddie didn't make his confirmation because his religion teacher told the entire neighborhood about how rowdy he was in class and no one would teach him), then the bride and groom had shared their first dance together, and then they were going to cut the cake, but the DJ told them to wait a few minutes because apparently someone had to be in the room to make sure the cake didn't splatter all over the walls or something (And good measure, with Jerome and Alfie in the room who knows what could go wrong).

Now, Patricia was sharing her very last dance with someone other than Eddie with Fabian, and honestly, she couldn't imagine anyone better. Fabian decided to continue his speech, quiet in the loud chatter of everyone in the ball room speaking at once.

"You got _your_ happy ending," he'd confirmed, smiling at her. "You started your 11th grade year absolutely despising Eddie's guts, and now you're married to him! Frobisher turned you into a sinner, so you couldn't feel any love, yet Eddie rescued from eternal damnation. Everyone is still here. Mara married again, Jerome married again, and who knows when the others will marry. For now, though, you have _your_ happy ending."

Patricia turned around to smile at Eddie, who didn't notice his wife was staring at him as he tried to sneak another piece of the cake into his pie hole.

"I guess so," she agreed, turning around along with Fabian as they danced. It felt weird to be in his arms; after she'd denied his offer to kiss him when she'd found the missing puzzle piece, after many awkward moments she'd found herself in, she never once _danced_ with him. He was a horrid dancer at the masquerade ball for the library's opening, so she was very much surprised at how much he'd improved.

"I'm proud of you, you know," he said, in the least awkward way possible that he could have. "You overcome a lot. You got over your irrational hatred of Nina in 2010 when Joy went missing. You matured so much, and even though you kind of handled the whole Eddie situation in 2011 a bit...um...weirdly, to say the least, you've changed in a good way. Sometimes I still miss the times when you wore the hair streaks in your hair, but...all in all, I like how you've changed. You know...you're like my little sister."

"Fabian, you _have_ two little sisters already."

He chuckled, releasing _that_ laugh once again. "I know. But they're older now and _much_ more annoying than they were when they were teenagers." He smiled, twirling Patricia around one last time before setting her in front of him as the song finally ended. "I'm glad you got your happy ending, Patricia," he grinned, one final time. "I wish you and Eddie a happy life together."

As he turned to walk away, he left Patricia feeling empty, for some reason. Maybe it was because her gown wasn't swaying with Fabian's uneven dancing method, but she called his name and beckoned him to her; he came gratefully, just as confused as Patricia was when she started.

"I want you to have your happy ending, too, Fabian," she'd whispered to him sadly, a happy thought and a sad thought colliding at once. "So I'm telling you this: Nina Martin is sitting alone at table eight."

"What?" was Fabian's first response, his eyes as big as Bugsy's. Without saying a word, Patricia giggled like Amber would if she saw David Beckham shirtless, and pointed near the DJ station, where Nina was still sitting alone, her straw probably getting dizzy from all the running around it was doing. Fabian, also without a word, walked to the table confidently, one of the only things he'd been sure about for a long time.

Patricia, without holding her white gown up, walked over to Eddie and kissed him a hello, not caring that some of the leftover icing had been transferred from his lip to hers. "Do you think he'll find his happy ending with her?" Patricia wondered aloud, waiting for Eddie to swallow his piece of cake. Even before it was off of his fingers and being squeezed down his esophagus, Patricia's exact thoughts were _Screw it_ and she ignored the traditional rules of a wedding, dug her hand into the cake, and stuffed a handful on Eddie's face, spreading it all around, laughing like a maniac.

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**/o~~~o/**

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"Nina...I was just wondering if you...um...if you'd want to—"

"Spit it out, Fabe!"

"Nina, would you like to dance with me?"

"Yes."

"Yes...wait, YES?!"

"Yes!"

A smile crossed Fabian's face as he slammed his fist on the table, knocking a few drops of lemonade on the table as he replied with, "YES!"


End file.
